Paper Tiger
by Wolfie-Dragon
Summary: Normally Astrid liked the calm, silence, and order that came with her job at the library. But one day a boy brings nothing but chaos. And yet, she can't bring herself to be angry at the green-eyed boy and his black cat who so blatantly disrespected her books. Fluffy Hiccstrid oneshot.


On most days, Astrid liked her job at the library. It wasn't her dream job, far from it (she still wanted to become a fighter pilot one day), but it was a million times better than her previous job at a donut store. Sorting books was much simpler than pouring and mixing hot coffee, customers were much less rude and pushy, and the silence in the library was an incredible relief after having to listen to stupid cheesy Christmas music for six hours per day.

Seriously, if she had to work there one more time while _Last Christmas_ and _All I Want For Christmas_ played all day she'd grab the fire axe and kill her manager.

Not that the library was perfect either. Some little girls seemed to think it was hilarious to take random books and put them back on different shelves, and the greasy man who kept borrowing adult books like _Madam Bovary_ kind of creeped her out. Especially when he blatantly checked her out while checking his books out, and it took all of her willpower not to remind him her eyes were up here, never mind slap him.

Still, it was better than the creeps visiting the donut shop. Gods, the pickup lines were horrible there. And the clients were simply less of a hassle. Library visitors just seemed so much more relaxed than the hasty businesspeople demanding a donut this very instant.

Astrid finished her jog to work, and prepared herself for another day of book sorting. Snow blew against the high windows of the old building, and Astrid nearly slipped on an icy puddle near the door. She yelped and barely managed to steady herself on a nearby pillar. Hoping no one had seen that, she walked over to the young adult fiction section.

Grabbing the cart, she started putting the newly arrived books on the shelves, marveling at the… interesting titles. Who in the world came up with the title _'The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things'_? Still, better than the punny coffee names she sold at the donut store.

For the next hour Astrid rearranged the books in the correct order and put this year's new popular dystopian teen drama on the shelves, somewhat listening to the giggling girls a few yards away. The teenagers were discussing which tragic vampire boy character should be with the female lead, eventually agreeing that the hottest outcome would be if the boys would leave the girl and just hook up with each other.

Astrid shook her head in silent laughter when the girls walked away to check out their books. Her giddy mood disappeared when she heard a weird noise in the next aisle. It sounded like heavy things were being dragged on the marble floor. Moving her cart to the side, she walked over and peeked around the corner into the fantasy section.

After only a second of looking Astrid decided this was the strangest thing she had seen at this job yet. At the end of the aisle was a boy her age, with reddish-brown hair and a bright green shirt underneath a thick brown sweater. He was moving around on crutches, and a black cat circled him, eagerly meowing. He was using one crutch to slide several thick books over the floor towards a row of large stacks of books next to the fantasy shelf.

Astrid was frozen in shock at his blatant disrespect for the sanctity of books as he clumsily bend over and grabbed the books from the marble floor and put them on the various stacks, making them even taller. Oddly enough, each stack was smaller than the one next to it, like a staircase. The boy looked up and she quickly ducked her head back, only to peek around again to see him hop away towards the nonfiction section. The cat didn't go with him, instead awkwardly making small jumps on the staircase of books.

Frowning, she left her hiding spot and walked over to the pile of books. The cat had reached the top stack, putting him at her eye-level, and was leaning on the shelf. It seemed like he was reaching toward something on the top shelf, still two feet above him.

"Hey kitty! What are you doing here? You know you're not allowed to be here, right?" she asked the cat. Although some part of her was horrified at the cat's nails digging into the book covers, she was unable to stop herself from awing when it turned its head to look at her with bright green eyes.

Now that she could see it more closely Astrid noticed the cat's hind leg was lame, making his reaching awkward and explaining why it couldn't jump very high.

After staring at her for a few seconds the cat suddenly meowed loudly, the cry echoing in the halls. A moment later a voice called from the next aisle, along with the same sound of books sliding over marble.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming Toothless! You know I can't move very quickly! But just a few more trips and it'll be high enough to-" the boy said, stopping abruptly when he moved around the corner and saw her.

"Oh, uh… Hey, Astrid! Hi Astrid, hi Astrid, hi Astrid! Uhm… Are you visiting the library as well?" he asked, and she suddenly recognized him. It was Hiccup Haddock, an old classmate. The hadn't interacted much, both living in their own social circle. She knew he'd had a crush on her, and though she hated to admit it, she had liked him a lot too. Darn freckles and cute face and sharp cheekbones. Not to mention that brain that seemed to breeze through all his courses like it was nothing.

Nothing had come of it. Such a pairing had been unthinkable amid the high school politics that had seemed so important to her just a year ago. But now she couldn't quite remember why the athletics champion couldn't go out with the nerd who once blew up the science lab.

"No, I work here," she said, remembering she was a professional librarian now, not a blushing schoolgirl! Hiccup blushed, glancing at the huge pile of misplaced books, before looking down to avoid her gaze. She refused to stop glaring at him, determined to make him as uncomfortable as possible. He had caused her enough embarrassment in high school, and now was the perfect time to repay the favor.

"Pets aren't allowed in here. And while I'm impressed with your… construction project, you're not allowed to move books out of their section if you're not going to read them. Let alone stack them on the dirty floor!" she said, only making him blush brighter.

"Sorry, I just wanted to get a book. _The Dragon Manual_ , up there. It's filed under 'D', so it's at the top, and I couldn't reach it with these," he said as he shook his crutches, making Astrid look down at his legs.

Or rather, leg.

Oh.

She had assumed he simply had a broken leg or twisted ankle or something. She hadn't noticed his left pant leg was empty.

Shame crept up on her, and she felt like a jerk. She thought he had just been playing around, making an obstacle course for his cat or something. She whipped her head up to look at his face again, hoping he hadn't noticed her staring.

Of course he noticed. An awkward silence stretched, as neither knew what to say. After what felt like an eternity the cat suddenly meowed loudly, and she remembered her job again.

"We have ladders for that. Or you could have asked for help," she blurted out, immediately regretting saying it. He obviously couldn't climb a ladder, and she could imagine he wasn't eager to explain why he couldn't reach the top shelf. Even back in school he had been very wary of showing his flaws. Bullying does that to someone.

"What was your plan anyway? Stack books until you could climb them?" Astrid said before he could answer the painful question, and he gestured at the cat.

"Toothless would climb. He can fetch, so he'd push the book off and then I could grab it. He's smart like that," he said, clearly proud of his pet, and she felt her anger disappearing a little. But she still had a job to do.

"Nevertheless, books aren't meant to be used as stairs or stepping stones. What if someone wanted to read one of those books you nicked?!" she asked, and Hiccup smiled.

"That's why I only took the boring books!" he said as he took the top book from one of the stacks. ' _19_ _th_ _Century Parliamentary Law_ ', the title said, and as she looked at the stack she saw pretty much all of them dealt with laws or taxes. "Who's going to borrow this one?" he asked sarcastically.

Astrid raised her finger and was about to start a rant about how he couldn't know that when she realized he was right, sort of. In the entire time she had worked here nobody had ever been even slightly interested in the dusty law section.

"That… That doesn't make it okay! Do you know what my boss would do to me if she saw this?!" She shouted, cringing when her voice echoed loudly in the otherwise silent library.

"I was going to put them all back! I didn't want to get you into trouble!" Hiccup said with a shy smile, and she just couldn't stay angry at that lopsided smile. Old feelings were starting to resurface, and the room which had been icy cold before suddenly felt way too hot. Damn this stupid boy and his stupid grin and the way he had become even more handsome than he was in school.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'll grab your stupid book," she said, glaring when he looked insulted. He ducked his head, and she shoved a stack of books aside and climbed the lowest shelf so she could reach the brown book with the dragon on the cover.

"And now I'm going to clean up your mess. You just sit in the lounge there and read and not touch anything else. I remember your talent for destruction in school," she said clearly, making Hiccup look a bit miffed.

"The science lab thing was just an accident-" he started to mutter, but she shut him up with a light punch on his arm.

"That's for making my job so hard," she said, before forcing herself to calm down. "And that's not all. In an hour I'll have lunch break. You're going to take me out to lunch. For..." For all those times he had made her blush in high school. For those feelings now coming back stronger than ever. For rebellion against high school norms.

"For everything else," she eventually said, hoping he understood her gesture. Boys were dense, after all. He looked confused for a moment, but then he smiled a big grin.

"It's a deal," he said, before taking the dragon book she offered. "I guess I'll see you in an hour then. Come on, Toothless. Hey, stop looking at me like that!" he told the grinning cat, before turning around awkwardly on his crutches while keeping hold of the book.

As he disappeared around the corner Astrid allowed herself to smile. Her heart beat so loudly she was sure it was against library silence rules, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Yeah, this job was definitely way better than her previous one. Though Hiccup better not take her out to the donut shop.

* * *

 **This was inspired by a prompt on DailyAU on tumblr: "You're trying to reach the top shelf and I know you're short but please ask for help instead of climbing shelves/using books as stools/getting a running start". I guess I sort of changed the situation, but I hope you liked it!**


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